Delhi Police chose to remain silent spectators, while the UP Police found the body of the 17-year-old boy who was kidnapped on February 11. Had the Delhi Police been more proficient in tracing the ransom calls made by the kidnappers, the story could have been different. The family members of the boy, Ankit Gupta demanded action on the way the case of kidnapping of their son was handled by the Capital’s police force.
Ankit’s uncle recalled how the police failed to trace the repeated ransom calls made by the kidnappers who were demanding a sum of Rs 1 crore in cash. “On February 11, Ankit was kidnapped. On February 12, at 2.15 pm, Ankit’s father, Anil Gupta, got the first ransom call demanding Rs 1 crore for the release of his son. His father begged that they cannot afford to pay that much money so the next day when the kidnappers called again and asked Ankit’s father to pay Rs 20 lakh. They told Anil to come to Old Delhi Railway station with the bag of cash. Police too had laid a trap. We all went at the agreed time, ie 4 am and waited till 6 am but the culprits did not show up. On separate occasions the kidnappers had asked Gupta to come to Bhajanpura and then at Raj Nagar Extension but still the police failed to trace the calls. Then after 15 days, DCP A K Singla called us and said that our case has been transferred to Special Staff of Farsh Bazaar and told us that both of them will work towards tracing the whereabouts of our child.”
“To add to our problems, the special staff kept on asking us irrelevant questions. It was only when we posted 20,000 posters across Delhi-NCR that after a month ie on March 11 we got a call from Badalpur police of Gautam Budh Nagar, UP telling us that they have 15-20 pictures of our son in a bad condition. In the pictures, Ankit was seen bleeding profusely from mouth, nose and there were multiple injury marks on his neck and other body parts,” added the tearful relative.
“We have lost our youngest child. He has three brothers and one sister. We only want justice against the police officials. It is because of their laxity that our child is no more.”
A student of Victoria Public School, Ankit was a class XII student who had gone to give his practical examinations on February 11.